Be Honest-After Shula Was Fired/Before Coach S Was Hired, Who Did You Want As Coach?

Hello! You are currently viewing our boards as a guest. However, by registering for FREE you will be able to read, create, and reply to posts and participate in our GAMEDAY threads. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!

Re: Be Honest-After Shula Was Fired/Before Coach S Was Hired, Who Did You Want As Coa

I was banging the drum for Tom Coughlin. I had watched him coach for many years in Jacksonville and thought he had done a great job. He also had prior head coach experience at Boston College.

Anyway, in 2006 they were ready to run him off from the Giants after 2 years. There was the whole Tiki Barber thing and NY fans were screaming for him to be fired. I thought Bama would have a better chance of getting him than Saban.

Then Tom Coughlin coached the Giants to a Super Bowl win over the Pats in 2007. I guess it worked out for everybody!

"What happened yesterday is history. What happens tomorrow is a mystery. What we do today makes a difference, the precious present moment." - Coach Nick Saban

Re: Be Honest-After Shula Was Fired/Before Coach S Was Hired, Who Did You Want As Coa

I thought CNS was the ONLY way to go. I nearly had an epileptic fit (hyperbolically speaking, no offense intended) when I heard on the radio that RichRod was hired. I made my feelings known here in 2009. I think RR is the kind of guy who can thrive in the right set of circumstances that involves avoiding playing tough teams (Hawaii, for instance; Boise State). But I think he's in over his head and overrated.

When I heard Saban's name in the search, I put together why he MIGHT actually come here. I am NOT a salesman at all, but I had worked out part of it. I've said before that when LSU hired Saban, I thought they were out of their minds, that he was another "latest fad" like Hallman and DiNardo. Keep in mind he had just broken through at Michigan St, so I figured he was basically another Ty Willingham (as we found out - Ty ain't that good). I thought he was incredibly arrogant to go to LSU and actually negotiate a national championship salary clause into his contract.

Then he won it all.

So I figured we had a good product to sell:

1) We were coming off the major period of probation on February 1, 2007 (this was before Textbookgate broke, of course). This would free him up to put his own team together.

2) Despite what he had heard about our misguided fans, they simply wanted a winner. And Saban had to know we had the raw material. After all, Shula-DuBose-Franchione-Curry - each of them a coaching misfit - all won ten games at Alabama (Curry's was the most impressive as he went 10-for-10 before losing the 1989 national championship at Auburn; Fran and Shula got 13 games). And his having been at LSU, he had to know the fire we had.

Let me add something else. I am NOT a body language expert BUT.....go back and watch his "I'm not gonna be the Alabama coach" comments. Look at him - when I saw that report, my immediate thought was, "We can get this guy." His eyes looked like a guy who almost wishes he HAD taken the train out of Miami. He has a sort of smirk when he says it that reeks (to me anyway) of insincerity in what he's saying. Go compare all of his other interviews with that. Rather than the defiant and determined coach we all know, he looks like a mouse cornered. (Note: please don't take ANY of this as a criticism of CNS - if he left here this morning, I'd thank him and buy him a beer just for restoring pride to this place).

So I was for CNS. He is the ONLY coach that ON THE DAY WE HIRED HIM I thought it was the right move. Stallings won me over by winning, but I thought his hiring was a pending disaster. I thought Perkins a train wreck, Curry a joke, DuBose unproven, Unmentionable living off LT's great year at TCU, and Price an idiot. (I tolerated Shula ONLY because of the circumstances of his hiring - firing Croom would have been a PR disaster).

And I'm proud to say I was right. Sure, I was wrong when LSU got him - but so what?

The first rule of Tidefans interactions - Selma does not use Google; Google uses Selma

Re: Be Honest-After Shula Was Fired/Before Coach S Was Hired, Who Did You Want As Coa

Originally Posted by 257WBY

I can't say I had anyone in mind. I don't understand why the SEC can't produce it's own coaches, though. Why does the SEC have to get Ohio coaches?

How about coaches from the great state of West Virginia? We've got the best one in the SEC and he isn't from the SEC. Where was Frank Thomas from? Where was Wallace Wade from? Where was Gene Stallings from? I just don't care where they are from if they can win BIG TIME at Bama.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" Patrick Henry

Re: Be Honest-After Shula Was Fired/Before Coach S Was Hired, Who Did You Want As C

I was a Butch Davis guy until I heard about the Saban possibility. I didn't start believing it was gonna happen until the hiring dragged on and I knew we were waiting on someone to finish their season. Never wanted anything to do with Spurrier but, make no mistake, he wanted the job. I thought that he was finished but he's done an outstanding job at South Carolina since then. I didn't think that he still had it in him.

Re: Be Honest-After Shula Was Fired/Before Coach S Was Hired, Who Did You Want As C

I remember rooting against candidates moreso than for certain ones. I was totally against Grobe and Johnson. Grobe seemed like a flash in the pan type, and after the inept offenses of the past several years I was not convinced that the option would change that.

Rich Rod seemed like a great choice at the time, simply because he was an offensive coach and that was the biggest area of weakness at the time.

Re: Be Honest-After Shula Was Fired/Before Coach S Was Hired, Who Did You Want As Coa

I had been getting info from CNS's agent's office, via several avenues, that it was a done deal for weeks. However, I found out later from CMM via BN that it almost didn't happen at the last minute. The two hurdles were the limb he'd gone out on while trying to silence the media and the fear of how it would be viewed, his coming back to the SEC west to a rival school of LSU after only two years. Only Mal's stubbornness and Ms. Terry saved the day...

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. - Ellen Parr"

'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' - Steve Jobs

“I would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.” Albert Camus

"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis